The claimed invention relates to equipment for diagnostics and research, in particular, to devices used for preparation of histological and biological specimens for microscopy. It can be applied in biological and medical laboratories performing microscopic study of cell and tissue samples, especially in those specializing in histological and cytological investigation.
Histological or biological specimens that have been appropriately treated, attached to microscopic slides and stained are then mounted in special media so that an optically homogenous area is created and the specimens are preserved for the time period sufficient for investigation. Canada balsam, polystyrene and styrene co-polymers are a few examples of commonly used optical media. Xylene solution of a mounting medium is applied onto a specimen attached to a slide and the whole is covered with a cover slip. Before the specimen can be submitted for the microscopic investigation, the medium must dry out while the slide is positioned horizontally in order to prevent cover slip displacement or medium leakage. Microscopic slides with mounted specimens are laid out for drying in slide trays. A slide tray is a plastic, wooden, or cardboard tray with rectangular standard slide-sized cells. A slide tray may have 10, 20, or 30 cells arranged in a row or in rows. Slides in slide trays are further submitted for microscopic investigation.
Slides are placed in slide trays manually; this operation is rather labour-consuming and requires attentive personnel. In addition, the slide trays consume a lot of laboratory working space while the slides are being laid out.
To our knowledge, there exist no known devices for arranging microscopic slides in slide trays. A known device manufactured by VisionBioSystems, Australia, can deliver microscopic slides from slide trays lying in a container to the microscope stage and return them back into the slide trays, but it is required that the slides have already been placed in the slide trays.